


You Could Outshine The Stars If You Chose To

by morganadarkwings



Category: The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Genre: Aunt-Niece Relationship, Brother-Sister incest (mention), F/F, Feels like Parent-Child incest but isn't, Incest, Lesbian Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganadarkwings/pseuds/morganadarkwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the birth of Gwydion, Morgaine feels even less beautiful than usual. Morgause will do anything to help her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Could Outshine The Stars If You Chose To

Unbeknown to everyone but herself, Morgause sometimes slipped away to another room in the castle to sleep.  When she found herself unable to listen any longer to Lot’s deep breathing and snoring fit to wake the dead, there was comfort in a chamber filled only with silence and the occasional howling of wind.  This night, she awoke to find Morgaine sat silently, watching her.

“What business have you here, Morgaine, disturbing my rest?” she whispered sharply, and the younger woman dipped her head in deference.  Briefly, she thought there seemed to be tears glistening in the dark, intense eyes, but the light was poor and she could not be certain.  “Speak, child!”

Morgaine shifted, her hair loose about her shoulders, and unfastened the house cloak she wore, letting it slide to the floor with a soft sighing of material and air.  With it came to Morgause a scent of floral water, the kind which she dabbed at her throat before she moved through the court.

“What disrespect do you mean by this, child?  Why come you to me with your hair unbraided and smelling of floral scent – _my_ scent, I have no doubt, for I hardly believe you had need of such frivolities in Avalon – while I am trying to rest as befits a queen with a king and husband to serve, and a kingdom to oversee?”  Her words spilled quickly, her voice scratchy and rough, with sleep still in it.

Morgaine laughed low and spiteful.  “‘Why come you to me’?” she mimicked, “ah, Morgause, do not draw on your cloak of grandeur and authority now.  Speaking to me as Viviane would will not compel me to answer you.  And I see that your ambition and arrogance have not left you – ‘a kingdom to oversee’, I have never heard the like, although it does not surprise me.”

Morgause drew herself up to her full seated height, her cheeks aflame and gaze wounding.  “Ungrateful, treacherous mare!” she raged, “remove yourself from my chambers at once if you wish to spend another moment here as my honoured guest and kinswoman.  I took you in as a mother to her daughter or sister to sister, you have dined on the finest food, you have had a bed – a fine bed, and chambers – and women to attend, I have birthed your child and spared women to attend upon and suckle the babe, all without asking anything of you in return.  And here you come to me in such insolence and speak to me as to a wretched beggar, not the aunt who half raised you as her own girl babe.  What would you have me do, venerable priestess of Avalon?  Forgive your tongue, your cheek and thanklessness?  I think not.  Kindly remove yourself at once and return to me with your most humble apology after the breaking of the fast, and I shall decide then what I intend to do.”  Morgause finished breathless – never had she scolded her sons in such a way, and it exhausted her in her already-tired condition.

Morgaine looked shocked and – gratifyingly – shamed.  “Morgause, Aunt-” she began, but Morgause raised a hand to silence her.  “ _Please_ ,” she asked, like a plaintive child, and even when a child she had been, she always seemed more adult than Morgause, despite the difference in their years.  It was the first time Morgause could ever recall hearing Morgaine sound anything other than like the solemn, young Viviane she had always been.

“Very well,” she said dispassionately, “say what you must, but I will still hear your apology tomorrow.”

Morgaine’s voice faltered, and it struck Morgause as a tight, hot pain in her belly – hearing her nervous unsurety was the equivalent of a mother hearing her child cry in pain or fear.  “I borrowed one of your bottles of scent, yes, and have been wearing it about the place a little, but in the name of the goddess I swear I meant no disrespect, Aunt.  Since the night of the birthing I have done little else than eat and sleep; I have barely seen the child, and while I understand why you have done what you have, Morgause, I feel that I have endured nine moons of pain and ugliness for nothing.”  Morgause reached toward her in a gesture that Morgaine should move and sit upon the bed beside her, and she did so without question.  “It is true that in Avalon we did not waste time with looking glasses and floral water but do not mistake that for a lack of awareness of my own appearance.  Any woman is over-critical of herself when in the presence of those she finds beautiful, and when you, and Igraine, and others, never tire of telling me that Viviane is not beautiful – when I am the glass and image of her – I feel my lack of worth more than ever.  Arthur tall and silver-pale, you and Igraine both stately with hair as red as a fox’s back, and myself – small, dark Morgaine of the Fairies.  And small I am still – smaller even, with sickness and lack of food – and dark I am still – and paler, too, with lack of sun in this cursed wilderness – and now with my belly still swollen and my body aching all over I feel like a sow.  I have never been beautiful, and after this I shall never be!”

It was queer – frightening, almost – to see Morgaine weep with such feeling.  Before the birth, she had wept over nothing, and during and after, only the confused, delirious tears of someone in great pain and suffering.  And now, for her to be weeping – strong, solemn Morgaine who endured hunger, thirst, pain and ritual herbs, the effects of which Morgause could not even begin to guess at, with not even so much as a whimper – over her lack of beauty...  Morgause’s heart, her very soul, ached for the girl.  She pulled Morgaine to her breast, petting her hair and rubbing her trembling shoulders.  “After I birthed Gawaine, I looked at myself – soft, swollen and everywhere terrible scars, red slashes like my own battle wounds – and was convinced Lot would cast me aside for someone else.  I cried when he looked at me, let alone tried to touch me, until he finally told me that he cared not if I stayed the rest of my life fat as I had been before the birth, if only I could stop my weeping, for it was far more repulsive to him than any changes to my body.”

Morgaine wept harder, thinking of her own marked body.  It was the way, Morgause knew, with slender women – they had more growing to do than a woman with a little fat on her, and the scars were worse.

“I brought shame upon myself leaving Avalon – and dear Viviane, my Lady – as I did, and I must return and throw myself at her feet and beg for forgiveness, and once I am there there shall be no man to lay his hands upon me and say that I am beautiful in spite of it, Morgause, as you had.  The one man I shall ever love...”  Her voice broke, and she wept harder still into Morgause’s breast.  “Am I to live out my life never being told that I am beautiful?”

Morgause cupped Morgaine’s chin, bringing their gazes to meet, and in that moment she did not care who Morgaine was – niece, kinswoman, sister, daughter – only that she needed tenderness and love.  “I will tell you,” she said boldly, for if she was not bold her resolve would fail her and Morgaine would hurt more.

“Morgause?” Morgaine whispered, her face still upturned, eyes bright with confusion, and Morgase cupped her face in her hands.

“Any man ought to be honoured to touch you,” she murmured, and was shocked to find that she meant it.  Morgaine was beautiful in a plain and modest way, unaware of the simple, raw power of her dark, flowing hair, her learnedness, her passion.  But there were few like her, few who would appreciate the gift that she was without trying to adulterate her with bright cloth and scented oils.  It tore at Morgause, and made her do something she could never have believed she would do.

Never releasing Morgaine’s face from her cupped hands, she bent her head to kiss her lips.  It was not an unusual kiss – she had kissed Morgaine on the lips many times when they were young, just as she had her sister Igraine, Viviane when she visited, and when she had been raised as her daughter, and her sons too, as well as all manner of others.  But, before she knew it, the kiss was lingering as no woman should kiss her kin.  It sparked a thrill inside her, the way it did to take another man to her marital bed.

Morgaine’s eyes had closed, the corners of her mouth turning up in a contented smile.  Morgause wondered whether the girl had even been kissed.  She, too, would have kissed her kin – and perhaps the priestesses of the Isle, Morgause did not know – but had she ever been kissed as a lover?  Had she and Arthur had time for kisses, or had they tumbled into their coupling with haste, forsaking the trappings of intimacy in pursuit of the ultimate happiness?  It stirred her to think of them, and Morgause felt shame, but only for a moment.

“Aunt..” Morgaine murmured, her eyes only half open as though fearing Morgause had had a change of heart.

“Hush, do not use that word,” Morgause murmured, stroking Morgaine’s face, “I am only Morgause to you, and you Morgaine to me.  If you wish me to stop I shall, and none of this shall be spoken of again.”

For a moment there was silence, the younger woman resting comfortably still against her.  “I do not wish you to stop,” Morgaine replied calmly and clearly, “I wish more than anything for you to carry on.”

With a touch suggesting much more surety than she had, Morgause bid Morgaine lie on her back on the bed, and slowly, slowly, kissed her again.  It was a kiss unlike any she had ever known – tender and nakedly familiar, as though they knew every part of one another.  A part of Morgause told her that she ought not to be kissing her daughter like a lover, but she pushed the thought away – Morgaine was not her daughter, and although she was her kinswoman, Morgaine had lain with her own brother and pined unreservedly after him now as a lover; their coupling was insignificant in comparison to the twisted, brother-loving feelings she harboured.

It was Morgaine who deepened the kiss, her tongue swiping at Morgause’s lower lip as they held tightly to each other, and when they broke apart to breathe, she whispered Morgause’s name in reverence.  Slowly the elder woman eased up Morgaine’s sleeping shift, revealing her a little at a time until she came to the place where, beneath the material, coarse hair guarded Morgaine’s treasure.  In the half light their eyes met, gaze heavy with trust, and slowly Morgaine nodded, trusting Morgause to reveal her most secret place, her belly, soft and marked, and her breasts, grown attractively larger but marked too.  It seemed that neither woman breathed until the shift was discarded, but carefully, away from them at the end of the bed.

Sensing her unease, Morgause disrobed too, and Morgaine quickly saw that she had not been lying – her body was marked also, about her breasts and her belly, which was much more curved than Morgaine had noticed when the elder woman was clothed.  Still, in spite – or perhaps because – of how her body looked, she was so beautiful that for a moment Morgaine felt she might weep.  How could one so beautiful truly desire and think so much of her?

“Hush, child,” Morgause murmured, as though divining her fears, and began a soft trail of kisses along Morgaine’s strong jaw and down her neck.  The younger woman’s hands were not idle either; she petted Morgause’s rich red hair, taking handfuls of it to hold as the kisses peppered her shoulders and sensitive parts of her neck.  Tiny gasps and pleasant, feminine whines escaped her parted lips, her eyes closed in pleasure.

“Morgause,” she whimpered, and drew her back up to kiss her lips firmly, a soft hand drifting down between them and finding her breasts, stroking one and then the other as they kissed.  “Please,” she began, “let me-” , but Morgause shook her head gently.

“The time will come, little one, but first I wish to please you,” Morgause whispered, breaking away from the kiss to move lower.  She put her mouth to Morgaine’s breast, drawing the hard nipple into her mouth to lap at it with her tongue, encouraging a mewling from the woman beneath her.  No further words were spoken; Morgause content to allow Morgaine to fly free and unrestrained, Morgaine overwhelmed by a love she could not have degraded by putting into words even if she had tried.

After a few minutes more had passed, Morgaine trembling harder and harder, Morgause slid her hand down to the slick, swelling treasure between the younger woman’s legs.  She gasped Morgause’s name, her voice hitching with desire thinly-veiled, parting her legs more to accept the touch.  At the same time, while Morgaine was powerless to stop her, Morgause was stroking and kissing her soft belly, showing her more surely than any words could that in spite of what anyone said, there was at least one person in the world who thought her beautiful.

Morgause’s touch became firmer, making Morgaine writhe beneath her, her breath as choked as the younger woman’s.  She was on the verge of coming apart.  With a gentle kiss to the thatch of hair between her legs, Morgaine’s hips raised to meet her, Morgause rubbed harder, feeling the body beneath her tense in pleasure.  Morgaine lost herself wordlessly, with a drawn-out sob, and as she panted hard, Morgause gathered the young woman up in her arms and cradled her.

“Never think that you are not beautiful, Morgaine, loved one.  You could outshine the stars if you chose to do so,” she breathed, but Morgaine’s eyes were already heavy with tiredness, and when she tried to respond, her words were lost.  Morgause held her close to her breast, against her heart.  No matter what befell them in the future, they would always share the memory of that night, and may the goddess help Morgaine to look back on it every time she doubted that she was wonderful and beautiful and loved.


End file.
